Faith and the Cell PhoneA Sunday School Story

Mom was in the kitchen fixing dinner. “Johnny, you know I can’t understand what you are saying when you whine at me from the living room.”Johnny got up from the couch, set the phone down and went into the kitchen. “Faith won’t return my messages.” Johnny pouted. This was his first real crush on a girl his age. It was really a lot cuter five days ago. “She won’t return your messages?” Mom grabbed the spaghetti out of the cupboard; the water was starting to boil. “How many have you left?” “Like ten.” Mom broke the spaghetti strands in half and put them into the boiling water. “What? Honey, ten messages are too many. You have to give people time to pick up their voice mail. She’s probably out with her parents or something…” “Mom, I didn’t call her ten times. That’s lame…” Mom pulled the jar of spaghetti sauce from the fridge. “You weren’t using the computer without supervision were you?” Johnny was a good kid; still, his parents didn’t want him stumbling onto some of those bad web sites. “Mom.” He dragged out the vowel again. “You know I wouldn’t use the computer without your or dad’s permission. Why won’t she answer my messages?” Mom poured the spaghetti sauce into a sauce pan on the stove. “Honey, you know that the Petersons only have a house phone, right?” “Yeah.” He waited. His mother realized she would have to spell it out for him. “A land line doesn’t accept text messages.” She paused to let the information sink in. “Besides, don’t you remember what Elder Ballard said at Conference?” Johnny just looked at her. “You can’t text message faith.”